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Published on April 11, 2008

Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn, secretary-general of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), said yesterday that both state enterprises had submitted requests for the NTC to give them more time. TOT cited the slow process of procuring telecom equipment.

Both volunteered to wire up unserved rural areas in lieu of contributing to the universal service obligation (USO) fund. If NTC licensees do not want to do the work themselves, they have to pay 4 per cent of their revenue into the fund so that the NTC can hire companies to do it for them.

Suranan said the NTC had already asked TOT and CAT to provide more information and resubmit the requests on April 22. If they fail to give convincing details, the NTC might order them to chip in 4 per cent to the USO fund.

This new charge would add to TOT's financial burden. It has lost some Bt14 billion in revenue since Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True Move stopped paying the access charge to it in November 2006. TOT retaliated by suing them for the overdue payments.

The access charge is paid by the three cellular operators on CAT concessions to TOT for connecting their calls to other networks.

Last week an arbitration panel ruled that TOT has to pay Bt23.8 billion to TT&T, including interest, for letting cellular operators use TT&T's network. TOT will appeal the decision to the Central Administrative Court.

Suranan also said Advanced Info Service and DTAC had recently applied for 4 million more mobile-phone numbers each from the NTC.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation